In the summer of 2015, Stefan led a team of lawyers that won a $1,063,071 judgment following a two week federal jury trial in the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts. In September 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit rejected the defendant’s challenges to the judgment and affirmed the trial court decision in all respects. The case involved a multi-million dollar luxury yacht owned by Stefan’s client. Winning the case required navigating a complex litigation path that included multiple parties from different states, numerous expert witnesses, many depositions and substantial pre- and post-trial motion practice. At trial, Stefan’s team used the latest in animation graphics technology and employed high-tech trial consultants to help tell the client’s story in a compelling way.

Stefan has handled a variety of personal injury matters involving car accidents, defamation, dramshop and other matters. In a matter involving a complex trust instrument drafted more than forty years ago and intricate statute of limitations issues, Stefan represented a trust beneficiary at the trial and appellate court level. He achieved a large settlement for his client following mediation and Stefan’s successful advocacy before an appeals court that resulted in the reversal of an adverse trial court ruling that would otherwise have terminated the client’s claims. In a professional negligence case, he represented a drug therapy patient who received a $212,500 settlement from a methadone clinic and its insurers due to the “boundary” violations committed by its employee counselor, who had engaged in a sexual affair with the patient.

Stefan represents employees that have been wrongfully denied wages and other benefits protected by state and federal law. He has, for example, served as lead counsel in a putative class action case seeking benefits for some 7,000 state employees wrongfully denied benefits for many years. In late 2022, he served as lead trial counsel in a single-client wage detention case tried before a federal jury, which resulted in a $201,896 judgment. Stefan has also handled a variety of other employment-related disputes, including a federal dispute involving state and federal trade secrets claims and a claim under the federal Computer Fraud and Abuse Act.

Stefan’s construction litigation experience includes the following:

1. Representing the design team of Gillette Stadium in a major professional negligence and breach of contract action.
2. Representing a national engineering firm in a $50 million securities fraud lawsuit brought by six mutual funds against the firm and Goldman Sachs concerning municipal bonds issued to finance a Midwestern waste-to-energy plant.
3. Representing a large engineering firm in a $40 million federal court action in which the FDIC (as receiver for the Bank of New England) sued the engineer and a multinational law firm over the financing of a New York co-generation power plant.
4. Representing owners or designers of high-end custom homes in disputes with contractors and others. In one case, he obtained a favorable mediation settlement for the owners of a Back Bay brownstone involved in a protracted dispute with a general contractor. In another, he represented a Newton homeowner and achieved $230,000 settlement in a case involving flooding damage caused by construction activities on several adjacent lots.

Stefan has represented clients in appellate courts across the country, including the Supreme Court of the United States. He served as counsel of record for the Conference of State Banking Supervisors (CSBS) and the American Association of Residential Mortgage Regulators (AARMR) in a merits-stage amici brief in a 9-0 victory in Cantero v. Bank of Am., N. A., 602 U.S. 205 (2024), which involved federal bank preemption. He also served as counsel of record for CSBS and AARMR on petition and merits-stage briefs filed in another preemption-related 5-4 Supreme Court victory in Cuomo v. Clearing House Ass’n and the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, 557 U.S. 519 (2007). He previously was counsel of record for CSBS in State Farm Bank v. Reardon, an OTS preemption case in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit. Stefan also served as a legal consultant to the Office of the New Hampshire Attorney General in connection with a Petition for a Writ of Certiorari to the Supreme Court of the United States seeking review of the preemption case SPGGC, LLC v. Ayotte, 488 F.3d 525 (1st Cir. 2007).

Stefan has also briefed and presented oral argument repeatedly before a variety of federal and state appeals courts, including winning reversal of trial court final judgments, a rare feat. He has repeatedly represented clients with matters pending in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the First Circuit. In 2017, for example, the First Circuit affirmed in all respects a $1,063,071 trial court judgment in a case in which Stefan served as lead trial counsel and lead appellate attorney. In another case in the First Circuit, Stefan successfully settled a client’s Service members Civil Relief Act claim before oral argument. In a separate state court matter, Stefan obtained a reversal of a trial court’s dismissal of a client’s claims on statute of limitations grounds. The successful appellate court outcome led directly to a very large settlement of the client’s claims (the precise amount of which cannot be disclosed due to a highly specific confidentiality agreement).

Stefan previously served as Majority Counsel to the Committee on Banking and Financial Services of the U.S. House of Representatives in Washington, DC. As a Committee staff member, Stefan was involved in the development and passage of several significant pieces of financial services legislation, including the “Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act” (GLBA) and the Credit Union Membership Access Act of 1998, which legislatively overturned the holding in National Credit Union Admin. v. First Nat’l Bank & Trust Co., 522 U.S. 479 (1998).

In addition to appellate experience involving financial services discussed above, after leaving Capitol Hill, Stefan litigated “Winstar” claims in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims on behalf of financial institutions seeking hundreds of millions of dollars from the federal government for breach of contract in connection with the 1989 S&L bailout legislation, the Financial Institutions Reform Recovery and Enforcement Act (FIRREA). The legal theories supporting these claims were validated by the efforts of a Washington, DC, firm with which Stefan was associated. Those efforts included the successful representation of one of three lead appellees before the Supreme Court of the United States in the landmark government contracts case, United States v. Winstar, 518 U.S. 839 (1996). The Winstar decision has subsequently been cited in more than 4,920 other court decisions, secondary sources and legal briefs.

In the consumer rights area, Stefan has leveraged state and federal unfair and deceptive acts and practices statutes, including Massachusetts’ Chapter 93A. In a representative case for a homeowner client, he achieved a substantial settlement from a mortgage broker on claims of Chapter 93A unfair/deceptive acts or practices violations involving high-cost sub-prime lending practices.